Spain: for the first time, an employer is sentenced to jail after a deadly accident at work

An architect and three works foremen were condemned by the court of Madrid to pay a fine of more than 200 000 euros and were sentenced to 2 years and 6 months of prison for the death of two workers who fell off a scaffolding. A sentence described as "pioneer" and "historical", when labour unions complain about the usual impunity of the employer when it comes to labour law offences, and have been asking for many years to penalize offences concerning the security of workers. (Ref. 06921)
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Homicides by imprudence. With a million accidents, including 1000 deadly ones in a year, Spain is the European country with the most accidents at work. This accident occurred in 2001, when both workers, who were untrained, had no knowledge of the machinery and were not supervised, were sent to disassemble a mechanical scaffolding and made on a wrong maneuver. Moreover, the court underlines that the installation had not been correctly notified in the construction site’s notebook of safety norms.

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